A supercomputer is generally a computer that leads in terms of processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation, at a time of introduction. Supercomputers are typically used for executing highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems involving quantum mechanical physics, weather forecasting, climate research (including research into global warming), molecular modeling (computing the structures and properties of chemical compounds, biological macromolecules, polymers, and crystals), physical simulations (such as simulation of airplanes in wind tunnels, oil reservoir simulations, simulation of the detonation of nuclear weapons, and research into nuclear fusion), large population behavioral simulations (fashion trends, stock buying behaviors), cryptanalysis, simulated clinical trials for new drug inventions, and the like. Heavy users of supercomputers include major universities, military agencies, oil and pharmaceutical companies, financial organizations, and scientific research laboratories.
Current generation supercomputers typically have a same top-level, parallel architecture that comprises a cluster of nodes (e.g., compute nodes or input/output nodes), which enables the supercomputers to run at speeds over 100 TFLOPS (1012 FLOPS (Floating Point Operations Per Second)). Each compute node typically implements a limited memory and a minimal operating system that supports only a single user program, and consequently, supercomputers are generally equipped to only execute simulations in batch mode—i.e., process a group of transactions at one time. Accordingly, processors associated with a supercomputer are designed to utilize data from a database that has been previously staged (e.g., by a user) during execution of a simulation. For example, FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional supercomputer processing system 100 including a supercomputer 102 in communication with a database 104. Upon completion of an execution of a simulation, results of the simulation are fed back into the database 104 to be viewed by the user. Such operation of the super computer processing system 100 works well if a user desires only the results of a single simulation. However, if the user is interested in results of multiple simulations (in which a result of a given simulation builds on a result of a previous simulation), execution of the multiple simulations generally cannot be executed from a single setup—that is, a user is required to stage a database (e.g., database 104) with correct data after each simulation, which can be a time consuming process.